Saturday, November 16, 2013

The World We're Building

I'm glad to be back in our house...glad to be back in Sonoma County. Seven years is significant time to be away from an area that you've known for many years. Out and about looking around I feel like the old aunt who comes to visit and says, "My, how you've changed."

Impressions...sometimes they are good and sometimes they leave dents.

If only we would let creation impress more upon us, impress upon us the nature of beauty, the mandates of love, the limits of necessity and somehow too, the destructive nature of excess.

I live in a morning house now.

Out on an errand recently, I saw in my rear view mirror the profile of a new casino built on a field that in its most fallow estate was yet a paradise. I had heard it was big and I could see there were going to be difficulties accommodating the traffic generated.

I myself was making my way back from a big box store having been told it was the only place those simple ( old fashion) roll down shades would be offered. Even then, the version I found was not all that much like what I remember. I rarely frequent such stores, the sheer array of merchandise overwhelms me. People need things, but not all we have glittered up has purpose, even if we grant a certain amount of whimsy just to delight.

I reminded myself to watch my own purchases and decisions and participation and try to have a voice in the many decisions being made. I see that it is our land-rock, soil, water, air-as well as our civic premises, our social framework that we are changing.

What might be built here some day?

I'd caught only a glimpse of this casino I'd heard much about, built in the years I've been gone, that had been fought over from its inception, but a glimpse was enough. I'd signed a petition questioning the wisdom of it way back when. It was allowed because indigenous tribes have the authority to govern themselves under different guidelines as a "domestic dependent nation." I thought about how old a story land- and people- abuse is, and how wrongs, once done, are hard to right...generations later consequences continue to unfurl.

And aren't a lot of consequences unforeseen or unintended? Oh boy, casinos on farmland in my rearview mirror and on the radio tyranny and tragedy in distant lands and at home health insurance confusion aplenty.

There are many strange edifices being built and modified on the fly these days. How is your health insurance doing? If we create edifices of concrete or edifices of law that truly change the landscape, remodeling is likely to be only cosmetic. As I heard one man say on the radio, "the toothpaste is already out of the tube." A simply analogy, but sometimes simple is really what we need to get us to stop and see if what we are creating is truly an asset, a worthy addition to things as they are because we may not ever be able to put it back as it once was.

Recently treated as guest in the Green Music Center, another large building also built during my absence from the northland, I watched the members of an orchestra, as their rendition of a composer's music filled the room. I was reminded how much orchestral music depends on attention, on ready waiting, how essential timing is; you play your part in the given time. When composers, and the musicians who keep their creations alive, reflect the impressions creation has had upon them, music can stir those questions about God and man and this world we are rattling around in.

If I want to see the sunset, I have to go looking, but for a sunrise, I just have to wake up.

What's a soul to do in this world? I think of my life and the lives of family and friends, how many life decisions and choices and the difficulties they have created must be accepted as part of the landscape now. Regrets can't add much to the future, they aren't a pure fuel; the energy for the future needs both foundation and vision. What did I know in my wandering youth? I set out searching...but what did I know to search for? Love, faceless and dimly defined, was the ready answer. I wasn't really anticipating the larger unfolding picture. When Jesus said his command was summed up in love he also told his friends that he had much to tell them that they were not yet ready to receive or bear. That often rings true for me, but the command to "Love one another" sounded simple enough. Yet I find it is taking a life time to learn about love, and it's complicated by the fact that in the world, when it comes to love, there are many "lawless" amongst us. And as one dear friend recently said, she is overwhelmed just hearing about everything that is going on.I know, it's a lot of thoughts and impressions to toss your way, from my driving around my old homeland, checking out the local stations on the radio, peeking in my rear view mirror and thinking about how to go forward... but it helps me to remember I would do well to simplify, and then ascertain and focus where I can have influence. We've got the permit to build what we want, but not everything we can do is needed or beneficial.

If only we would let creation impress more upon us, impress upon us the nature of beauty, the mandates of love, the limits of necessity and somehow too, the distracting and destructive nature of excess.

11 comments:

Thank you, Jeannette! I appreciate your perspective on this... I know I've been thinking similar things lately about how much do we really "need" compared with how much people used to "need"? I'm thankful for our financial state because it forces me to look at this... something I've passed over without much consideration before.

For most of us, so much happens around us and to us that is *not* what we want, but nonetheless becomes part of our very personal landscape, sometimes as close as our back yard, or even closer. You express well the need to think and pray about our own options, so that we might make things not worse still, but better.

A casino was built near us just last year, I voted against it, but people pushed for it, saying it would create more jobs! I just see people losing their $$$ there. I hope some of the natural beauty is kept, sad how so much changes...

You have very good thoughts and certainly nothing I would disagree with. One thing that makes me sad is that the things that ARE built are not done so very beautifully for the most part. Are these thoughts we have as we get older? Esp the part of realizing how little we know of love and that indeed a lifetime will not be long enough? This has been very much on my mind as I've encountered some Hard Things that have had to chose love and honestly it has not been easily done (but it has been won by God's grace). I am not who I want to be and I am often shocked at how far people (specific and in the broader sense of the word) are from who I thought they were.

Well, with that I must turn it. Many blessings as your continue your exploration of your new/old home and settle in. Righting wrongs...one day it will be made right and that is what I hope to ponder as I fall asleep.

I see I found guidance in this same post over a year ago. Now this line strikes me: "I reminded myself to watch my own purchases and decisions and participation and try to have a voice in the many decisions being made."

I am curious to know if you have found -- and are experiencing -- a simple life, or if you feel pushed and pulled like so many others.

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